In order to have a fun and interesting tabletop role-playing campaign, each of you need to create a well-rounded character. You will assume this character's identity during role-playing and you will always need to be thinking about how your character would respond in a given situation. You can create a character who shares your own morals, principles, and ideas, or one who is completely opposite from you. What matters most is that you as the player are true to the character you've created.
Example: Jane's PC is named Minnie, an amoral, well-armed mercenary looking for work in these lean times. Minnie doesn't commit evil acts for fun but she's no saint; she's only interested in looking out for himself. During the campaign, the game master tells Jane that Minnie has come across a child burying his parents. The child has enough food for three people now that his parents have died, and he asks Minnie to be his escort to a nearby town so he can try to find relatives to stay with, and he's willing to pay with food. Minnie sees the boy has no weapons to defend himself from attackers and likely wouldn't last long out in the open. Although Jane, the player, is a social worker and volunteers at soup kitchens on the weekends, her character Minnie doesn't share her sense of charity. Minnie shoves the boy down, takes as much food as she can carry, and abandons the child to his fate. Jane might not like Minnie's decision, but she understood that Minnie has her own ideas. Jane stayed true to Minnie's character.
You'll also have to write a short fiction piece based on your characters' experiences. If you wrote in the first person, Minnie wouldn't be telling about the boy's misfortune and how sad and lonely he looked; she might describe him as an easy mark and would congratulate herself on a good day's work, or maybe that night as she was eating the kid's food, she thinks back with some regret that she lives in a world where she needs to make these kinds of decisions. How to depict Minnie will be up to you as the writer. If you're new to role-playing it will be less challenging to create a character who would think and act like you likely would; more experienced gamers (or those up for a challenge) can create more difficult-to-manage characters.
For more detailed information on character creation, see Vampire: The Masquerade rulebook pages 104-66.
Character Creation
Step One: The Basics
Outward Appearance
From the start you need to come up with the following: name, sex/gender, race/ethnicity, build (combination of height/weight and conditioning), and age.
Think about these categories (besides name) as the way someone would perceive about your character when s/he walks into a room.
Nature, Demeanor, and Concept
This step starts rounding out your character a bit more.
Nature sums up the character at his/her core. Always the optimist? Or is the grass always greener over there? Is the world out to get him? Or does she think that life is what you make of it? Write a sentence or two summing up how your character looks at life.
Demeanor is how the character presents themselves to others. Grumpy? Arrogant? Friendly? Remember that this can be different than their nature. Someone can be outwardly friendly but be very negative and pessimistic in private. Again, write a sentence or two.
Concept is a boiled down summary of the character. If you read "presidential hopeful," "hardworking mechanic," and "ambitious gang leader" you get a very different impression of the road these characters have traveled. In a few words, try to sum up what your character is about.
Step Two: Attributes
Attributes
You should have a fairly good idea what your character cares about at this point. The next step is to start determining what they're actually good at. You can either concentrate your attributes in a few areas and be weak in others, or you can spread them out to be a jack-of-all-trades. During gameplay, you will roll dice to determine whether your character succeeds at a task. This can range from picking a lock, punching an enemy, or deciphering a coded message. Your attributes are measured by dots, represented here as: O. Each dot represents an additional die you get to roll when attempting a feat. The more dots, the better your chances.
You have three attribute categories: physical, social, and mental. Each ability begins with one dot.
Physical
Social
Mental
Strength
Dexterity
Stamina
O
O
O
Charisma
Manipulation
Appearance
O
O
O
Intellience
Perception
Wits
O
O
O
You can add seven (7) dots to one category, add five (5) dots to a secondary category, and three (3) dots to the remaining category. If my character was a politician who wanted to get on people's good side right away, I'd choose social as my primary category (add 7 dots), mental as my second (add 5), and physical as my third (add 3). No one ability can have more than five dots and an average ability is two dots. So my resulting character would look like this:
Physical (+3)
Social (+7)
Mental (+5)
Strength Dexterity Stamina
O OOOO O
Charisma Manipulation Appearance
OOOO OOOO OOO
Intellience Perception Wits
OOOO O OOO
This character will want to talk his way out of a mess rather than fighting!
Strength is a measure physical strength. It determines successes in lifting heavy objects and dealing damage in physical combat. My sample character isn't too physically strong with only one dot.
Dexterity reflects how nimble and coordinated the character is. This impacts any kind of acrobatics, dodging, or using thrown weapons or guns. This character is pretty dexterous, meaning he's better attacking from a distance and avoiding damage.
Stamina indicates how much physical punishment the character can take. Characters with high stamina will be a good physical shape and have a better chance of warding off sickness, poisons, and physical damage. My character only has one dot, so he's going to want to avoid taking any damage.
Charisma is the character's charm. With four dots, this character knows how to play people; he'd be a great used car salesman. People will be inclined to like him, or at least agree with him because he has that ability to make people feel like he really cares what they're saying.
Manipulation is the less nice version of charisma. If someone needs to be fooled, interrogated, or otherwise pressured, your character would use their manipulation ability. With four dots, manipulation is a decent option depending on the situation.
Appearance indicates how good looking the character is. A five-dot character would be a supermodel; at three dots, my character is a pretty good looking guy, which compliments his charisma. Overall, people will likely be pretty impressed with him on a first impression.
Intelligence is the character's smarts, or ability to "think around corners." This character, with four dots, strategizes well and tries to solve problems intellectually.
Perception is more of a gut feeling or street smarts quality. A book smart person might blunder into a dark alley and not realize that muggers are lurking in the shadows, whereas a character with high perception would never make that mistake. With only one dot, this character isn't very perceptive.
Wits is fast-thinking in tight spots. If you "have your wits about you" it means that you can quickly decide on and effect a course of action instantaneously. Wits can get your character out of a tight spot when intelligence and perception have let you down.
So you can see that how I assigned the dots helps me understand the character better. My character is very charismatic and will try to use persuasion to get his way after carefully thinking out a plan. He's a little naive though and can land himself in trouble; when this happens he's going to avoid any direct confrontation and get out of there as quickly as possible!
After assigning your attributes, go back and recheck your basics and make sure it all makes sense. If you character's concept is a fast-talking lawyer, does it make sense that you used Physical as your primary category? Of course, your character can be a contradictory mess--we all know these people, don't we? But this makes a character much harder to play convincingly. You're probably better off trying to form a consistent vision for your character and shape her or him to it, understanding that weaknesses arguably make a character more interesting than strengths.
The Vampire: The Masquerade rulebook, from which we are adopting this system, uses these guidelines for the attributes:
Strength
O - Poor: You can lift 40 lbs.
OO - Average: You can lift 100 lbs.
OOO - Good: You can lift 200 lbs.
OOOO - Exceptional: You can lift 300 lbs.
OOOOO - Outstanding: You can lift 500 lbs. and would be competing in World's Strongest Man.
Dexterity
O - Poor: You are clumsy and awkward. Put that gun down before you hurt yourself.
OO - Average: You're no clod, but you're no ballerina, either.
OOO - Good: You possess some degree of athletic potential
OOOO - Exceptional: You could be an acrobat if you wished.
OOOOO - Outstanding: Your movements are liquid and hypnotic - almost superhuman.
Stamina
O - Poor: You bruise in a stiff wind.
OO - Average: You are moderately healthy and can take a punch or two.
OOO - Good: You are in good shape and rarely fall ill.
OOOO - Exceptional: You can run - and perhaps win - any marathon you choose.
OOOOO - Outstanding: Your constitution is truly Herculean.
Charisma
O - Poor: Stop picking your nose.
OO - Average: You are generally likable and have several friends.
OOO - Good: People trust you implicitly.
OOOO - Exceptional: You have significant personal magnetism.
OOOOO - Outstanding: Entire cultures could follow your lead.
Manipulation
O - Poor: A person of few (often ineffectual) words.
OO - Average: You can fool some of the people some of the time, just like anybody else.
OOO - Good: You never pay full price.
OOOO - Exceptional: You could be a politician or cult leader.
OOOOO - Outstanding: "Of course I'll tell the prince it was I who tried to stake him!"
Appearance
O - Poor: Ugly as a mud fence.
OO - Average: You don't stand out in a crowd, for better or for worse.
OOO - Good: Strangers offer to buy you drinks at bars.
OOOO - Exceptional: You are appealing enough to be a model, and people often go out of their way to tell you so.
OOOOO - Outstanding: People react to you with either insane jealousy or beatific awe.
Intelligence
O - Poor: Not the sharpest knife in the drawer (IQ 80).
OO - Average: Smart enough to realize you're normal (IQ 100).
OOO - Good: More enlightened than the masses (IQ 120).
OOOO - Exceptional: You're not just bright, you're downright brilliant (IQ 140).
OOOOO - Outstanding: Certified genius (IQ 160+).
Perception O - Poor: Perhaps you are absurdly self-absorbed, perhaps merely an airhead; in any event, even the most obvious details elude you.
OO - Average: You are oblivious to the very subtle, but aware of the bigger picture. OOO - Good: You perceive moods, textures and minuscule changes in your environment. OOOO - Exceptional: Almost nothing evades your notice. OOOOO - Outstanding: You instantly observe things almost imperceptible to human senses.
Wits
O - Poor: Pull my finger.
OO - Average: You know when to bet or fold in poker.
OOO - Good: You are seldom surprised or left speechless.
OOOO - Exceptional: You're one of the people who make others think, "Ooh, I should have said..." the next day.
OOOOO - Outstanding: You think and respond almost more quickly than you can act.
Step Three: Abilities
Attributes reveal what your character was like more or less at birth; no amount of studying is going to make a dim character suddenly very smart, and no amount of weight training will make a gawky character musclebound. Abilities take into account what nature did not. You spend ability points across different categories, but now no ability can have more than three dots.
You have three ability categories again: instinct, social, and mental. Each ability begins with zero dots.
Academics Barter Computer/Electronics Enigmas Investigation Law Medicine Politics Religion Science
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
--
Again, you have to assign points per category. You can add thirteen (13) dots to one category, add nine (9) dots to a secondary category, and five (5) dots to the remaining category. So let's stick with my fast-talking, wheeler-dealer character. I'm going to drop my 13 dots on the knowledges category and use talents as my secondary with 9 points, and I'll use the last 5 on skills. Remember, can't use more than 3 in any one ability. So my character looks like this:
Academics Barter Computer/Electronics
Enigmas Investigation Law Medicine Politics Religion Science
OOO O
O O O OOO -- OOO --
--
The abilities rounded out my character even more--even if he's starting to look a little lopsided. He's definitely your man if you're trying to talk yourself into (or out of) a given situation. He can regale people with his knowledge about law and politics and art but he's absolutely worthless in a fight. Still, he's a useful character to have around if you're not plowing blindly into danger, but give him a gun and he'd likely shoot his foot off--or yours, for that matter.
Here are some of the specialties that go along with the abilities, again from the Vampire: The Masquerade rulebook and adjusted for our purposes:
Player-Character (PC) Creation Walkthrough
Player-Characters, Gaming, and Writing
In order to have a fun and interesting tabletop role-playing campaign, each of you need to create a well-rounded character. You will assume this character's identity during role-playing and you will always need to be thinking about how your character would respond in a given situation. You can create a character who shares your own morals, principles, and ideas, or one who is completely opposite from you. What matters most is that you as the player are true to the character you've created.Example: Jane's PC is named Minnie, an amoral, well-armed mercenary looking for work in these lean times. Minnie doesn't commit evil acts for fun but she's no saint; she's only interested in looking out for himself. During the campaign, the game master tells Jane that Minnie has come across a child burying his parents. The child has enough food for three people now that his parents have died, and he asks Minnie to be his escort to a nearby town so he can try to find relatives to stay with, and he's willing to pay with food. Minnie sees the boy has no weapons to defend himself from attackers and likely wouldn't last long out in the open. Although Jane, the player, is a social worker and volunteers at soup kitchens on the weekends, her character Minnie doesn't share her sense of charity. Minnie shoves the boy down, takes as much food as she can carry, and abandons the child to his fate. Jane might not like Minnie's decision, but she understood that Minnie has her own ideas. Jane stayed true to Minnie's character.
You'll also have to write a short fiction piece based on your characters' experiences. If you wrote in the first person, Minnie wouldn't be telling about the boy's misfortune and how sad and lonely he looked; she might describe him as an easy mark and would congratulate herself on a good day's work, or maybe that night as she was eating the kid's food, she thinks back with some regret that she lives in a world where she needs to make these kinds of decisions. How to depict Minnie will be up to you as the writer. If you're new to role-playing it will be less challenging to create a character who would think and act like you likely would; more experienced gamers (or those up for a challenge) can create more difficult-to-manage characters.
For more detailed information on character creation, see Vampire: The Masquerade rulebook pages 104-66.
Character Creation
Step One: The Basics
Outward Appearance
From the start you need to come up with the following: name, sex/gender, race/ethnicity, build (combination of height/weight and conditioning), and age.
Think about these categories (besides name) as the way someone would perceive about your character when s/he walks into a room.
Nature, Demeanor, and Concept
This step starts rounding out your character a bit more.
Step Two: Attributes
Attributes
You should have a fairly good idea what your character cares about at this point. The next step is to start determining what they're actually good at. You can either concentrate your attributes in a few areas and be weak in others, or you can spread them out to be a jack-of-all-trades. During gameplay, you will roll dice to determine whether your character succeeds at a task. This can range from picking a lock, punching an enemy, or deciphering a coded message. Your attributes are measured by dots, represented here as: O. Each dot represents an additional die you get to roll when attempting a feat. The more dots, the better your chances.
You have three attribute categories: physical, social, and mental. Each ability begins with one dot.
Dexterity
Stamina
O
O
Manipulation
Appearance
O
O
Perception
Wits
O
O
Dexterity
Stamina
OOOO
O
Manipulation
Appearance
OOOO
OOO
Perception
Wits
O
OOO
This character will want to talk his way out of a mess rather than fighting!
So you can see that how I assigned the dots helps me understand the character better. My character is very charismatic and will try to use persuasion to get his way after carefully thinking out a plan. He's a little naive though and can land himself in trouble; when this happens he's going to avoid any direct confrontation and get out of there as quickly as possible!
After assigning your attributes, go back and recheck your basics and make sure it all makes sense. If you character's concept is a fast-talking lawyer, does it make sense that you used Physical as your primary category? Of course, your character can be a contradictory mess--we all know these people, don't we? But this makes a character much harder to play convincingly. You're probably better off trying to form a consistent vision for your character and shape her or him to it, understanding that weaknesses arguably make a character more interesting than strengths.
The Vampire: The Masquerade rulebook, from which we are adopting this system, uses these guidelines for the attributes:
Strength
O - Poor: You can lift 40 lbs.
OO - Average: You can lift 100 lbs.
OOO - Good: You can lift 200 lbs.
OOOO - Exceptional: You can lift 300 lbs.
OOOOO - Outstanding: You can lift 500 lbs. and would be competing in World's Strongest Man.
Dexterity
O - Poor: You are clumsy and awkward. Put that gun down before you hurt yourself.
OO - Average: You're no clod, but you're no ballerina, either.
OOO - Good: You possess some degree of athletic potential
OOOO - Exceptional: You could be an acrobat if you wished.
OOOOO - Outstanding: Your movements are liquid and hypnotic - almost superhuman.
Stamina
O - Poor: You bruise in a stiff wind.
OO - Average: You are moderately healthy and can take a punch or two.
OOO - Good: You are in good shape and rarely fall ill.
OOOO - Exceptional: You can run - and perhaps win - any marathon you choose.
OOOOO - Outstanding: Your constitution is truly Herculean.
Charisma
O - Poor: Stop picking your nose.
OO - Average: You are generally likable and have several friends.
OOO - Good: People trust you implicitly.
OOOO - Exceptional: You have significant personal magnetism.
OOOOO - Outstanding: Entire cultures could follow your lead.
Manipulation
O - Poor: A person of few (often ineffectual) words.
OO - Average: You can fool some of the people some of the time, just like anybody else.
OOO - Good: You never pay full price.
OOOO - Exceptional: You could be a politician or cult leader.
OOOOO - Outstanding: "Of course I'll tell the prince it was I who tried to stake him!"
Appearance
O - Poor: Ugly as a mud fence.
OO - Average: You don't stand out in a crowd, for better or for worse.
OOO - Good: Strangers offer to buy you drinks at bars.
OOOO - Exceptional: You are appealing enough to be a model, and people often go out of their way to tell you so.
OOOOO - Outstanding: People react to you with either insane jealousy or beatific awe.
Intelligence
O - Poor: Not the sharpest knife in the drawer (IQ 80).
OO - Average: Smart enough to realize you're normal (IQ 100).
OOO - Good: More enlightened than the masses (IQ 120).
OOOO - Exceptional: You're not just bright, you're downright brilliant (IQ 140).
OOOOO - Outstanding: Certified genius (IQ 160+).
Perception
O - Poor: Perhaps you are absurdly self-absorbed, perhaps merely an airhead; in any event, even the most obvious details elude you.
OO - Average: You are oblivious to the very subtle, but aware of the bigger picture.
OOO - Good: You perceive moods, textures and minuscule changes in your environment.
OOOO - Exceptional: Almost nothing evades your notice.
OOOOO - Outstanding: You instantly observe things almost imperceptible to human senses.
Wits
O - Poor: Pull my finger.
OO - Average: You know when to bet or fold in poker.
OOO - Good: You are seldom surprised or left speechless.
OOOO - Exceptional: You're one of the people who make others think, "Ooh, I should have said..." the next day.
OOOOO - Outstanding: You think and respond almost more quickly than you can act.
Step Three: Abilities
Attributes reveal what your character was like more or less at birth; no amount of studying is going to make a dim character suddenly very smart, and no amount of weight training will make a gawky character musclebound. Abilities take into account what nature did not. You spend ability points across different categories, but now no ability can have more than three dots.
You have three ability categories again: instinct, social, and mental. Each ability begins with zero dots.
Athletics
Brawl
Dodge
Empathy
Expression
Intimidation
Leadership
Streetwise
Subterfuge
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
Crafts
Etiquette
Firearms
Melee
Perfomance
Security
Scavenge
Stealth
Survival
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
Barter
Computer/Electronics
Enigmas
Investigation
Law
Medicine
Politics
Religion
Science
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
Again, you have to assign points per category. You can add thirteen (13) dots to one category, add nine (9) dots to a secondary category, and five (5) dots to the remaining category. So let's stick with my fast-talking, wheeler-dealer character. I'm going to drop my 13 dots on the knowledges category and use talents as my secondary with 9 points, and I'll use the last 5 on skills. Remember, can't use more than 3 in any one ability. So my character looks like this:
Athletics
Brawl
Dodge
Empathy
Expression
Intimidation
Leadership
Streetwise
Subterfuge
--
--
--
--
OO
OO
OOO
O
O
Crafts
Etiquette
Firearms
Melee
Perfomance
Security
Scavenge
Stealth
Survival
--
--
--
--
--
--
O
OO
OO
Barter
Computer/Electronics
Enigmas
Investigation
Law
Medicine
Politics
Religion
Science
O
O
O
O
OOO
--
OOO
--
--
The abilities rounded out my character even more--even if he's starting to look a little lopsided. He's definitely your man if you're trying to talk yourself into (or out of) a given situation. He can regale people with his knowledge about law and politics and art but he's absolutely worthless in a fight. Still, he's a useful character to have around if you're not plowing blindly into danger, but give him a gun and he'd likely shoot his foot off--or yours, for that matter.
Here are some of the specialties that go along with the abilities, again from the Vampire: The Masquerade rulebook and adjusted for our purposes:
Talents
Skills
Knowledges